Glenn on youth opportunity

Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs) Football Club is located in North London. The club is also known as Spurs. Tottenham's home ground is White Hart Lane. The club motto is Audere est Facere (To dare is to do).

Glenn Hoddle confesses that he is encouraged by the performances of Spurs’ young brigade this season, but identifies temperament as the quality that will determine how far they progress in the game.

Glenn was at Highbury on Saturday and saw an unfamiliar line-up stall the Gunners for 70 minutes before Robert Pires and Thierry Henry broke down the barricades.

During the course of this season, Stephen Clemence, Luke Young, Ledley King, Alton Thelwell and Gary Doherty have enjoyed extended runs in the side, while Simon Davies, Matthew Etherington, Anthony Gardner and Dave McEwen have played cameo roles.

All are now viewed as valuable members of the squad and the group have more than played their part in compensating for the absence of injured players.

To emphasise the point, of the youthful crop, only Clemence was in the 16 that played Ipswich on the opening day of the season.

It goes to show that Glenn might be right when he speculated that we might have a £10m kid in the house.

Davies made the most eye-catching impact on Saturday’s game, only his second start of the season.

"Simon did particularly well in the first half," said Glenn. "He had a smashing little run, if Les had been able to play him back in he could have had a terrific little goal."

Of the youngsters in general, Glenn added: "There’s encouraging signs, but I need to see more on more on the training ground and more and more of their temperament.

"Ability is one thing, you’ve got to have the temperament — you got to have that to play at the top level and there’s a lot of things that need to be planted in a youngster.

"You see it come out, or you don’t see it come out, But it is an encouraging sign to see so many youngsters come through. The potential is there, and it’s up to me as coach, and the coaching staff to bring it out, and the players to get that out of themselves."